


Up from the Ashes

by Rhinozilla



Category: Jak and Daxter
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Gen, Mild Gore, Post-Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 07:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17956007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhinozilla/pseuds/Rhinozilla
Summary: It’s only been 72 hours since the Baron pulled back the shield wall and left an entire section of the city to the Metalheads. Determined to find the Shadow, Tess is the first to venture into the place that the rest of Haven is already calling “Dead Town.”





	Up from the Ashes

Tess thought she could handle this.

No, no that was a big ol’ lie. She knew that she could not handle this, but…there wasn’t anybody left. As far as she was aware, the only people with the Underground still alive were herself and the Shadow…and that was only because she refused to believe the Shadow had been killed. Even though the fires were still staining the sky with smoke nearly 72 hours later, and even the screaming had fallen silent on the other side of the wall.

Shaky murmurs around Haven were already calling the place “Dead Town.”

Dusk was starting the blend the smoke with the sky. It gave Tess a cloak to hide under as she activated the new gate in the hastily-installed wall that cut the old sector off from the rest of Haven.

Even as the cogs rolled to unlock the gate and give her access to the war torn sector, she only wanted to turn and run the other way. She had strapped a small arsenal to her person, virtually all of the Underground’s remaining inventory in the old hideout before they were bombed out. The rifle across her back was audibly rattling against the metal of her suspenders, bringing to her attention that she was practically vibrating with anxiety.

“C’mon,” she chastised herself, giving a full body shake to get a hold of herself.

The doors groaned open, already damaged from the onslaught of Metalhead skulls and claws during their earlier assault on the other side. She slipped through the door before it was fully open and before she could think herself out of it. She stepped into the air of Dead Town, and the gate slid shut after her.

“Dead Town” was a vicious understatement.

Three days ago, this sector had been structured with tall stone buildings, concrete streets, and was as densely populated as the rest of the city. Now…

She took a step, and her boot sank into blood.

The entire sector had been carpet bombed by the Baron and disemboweled by the Metalheads. Whole chunks of the buildings, of homes and business that Tess had visited countless times, lay in the murky water that had submerged the broken streets. The water appeared to have pushed through the dams in the former outer wall…of which there were barely even foundations left. Scorch marks from Krimzon Guard blasters, bombs, and Metalhead projectiles marred the new wall, the sides of buildings, the remaining streets, and the bodies.

Fire was still consuming the wooden skeletal remains of the older buildings. Patches of smoldering embers hissed at the blackened roots of destroyed trees and landscaping. Naked steel beams and sheets of metal had been warped by the heat of the bombs and the fire, bowing out in places like a rib cage cracked open among the other corpses.

The silence in the presence of so many open mouths momentarily stilled the breath in her throat.

Bodies, both civilian and Guard, lay where they’d fallen three days ago, mouths full of frozen screams and eyes vacant. They were on the ground, lying in pools of red that had started to dry black under three days of sun. They were draped over rocks and piles of debris. They were impaled where momentum had thrown them onto splintered edges and fractured rods…or where the momentum had thrown the edges and rods at them as they tried to run away. Parts of bodies, some unrecognizable, some still horrifically recognizable, were tossed about at random. Whoever that arm had belonged to, the rest of their body was long gone. The torso with an exposed hip bone and no limbs bobbed in the toxic water, leaking blood and innards into the wet.

Krimzon Guard rifles and blasters lay abandoned, some snapped in half by Metalhead jaws. Some were clutched in death in the white knuckles of Krimzom Guards who had gone down fighting. They were also held by civilians with bloody hands and unpracticed fingers, who hadn’t been able to figure it out fast enough to save themselves or their friends.

The Baron had abandoned all of them. Tess hadn’t even heard an order for retreat over the radio scanner that the Underground had used to listen in. He had just…gotten himself out and slammed a new wall down to cut the entire sector off from Haven…like amputating an infected limb.

Skullgems littered the area, illuminating the carnage in an eerie yellow glow, framed by splashes of dark eco where the Metalhead bodies had dissolved.

The corpses seemed to watch her as she picked a path through the battlefield. The light from the fires gave the open eyes the illusion of life, and Tess kept her eyes squinting into the growing darkness brought on by the night. The part of her not forcibly numbed by the extent of the violence was radiating anger and guilt. That part of her demanded that she look at each of these people, meet the eyes of the damned and acknowledge them.

They had been thrown out to the monsters that their leader was supposed to protect them from. No rescue attempts had been made. No attempts to evacuate had been undertaken. As soon as the shield wall had been pulled back, this sector of the city had ceased to necessitate resources from anyone, from the Baron and his Guard, from the Underground, from any civilians who had family or friends on the other side.

They were simply written off as lost…even as they had screamed for help and beaten their fists bloody against the wall, trying to escape.

The living had failed them all. Tess trembled and sniffed back the overwhelming sense of loss and horror.

She couldn’t help them now. She retreated into that protective numbness in her mind. Find the Shadow. If the rest of the Underground is dead, then at least find the Shadow, and…what? They were just two people…Even with all the power that the Shadow had…they couldn’t think…

Some debris shifted to her left, and in one fluid motion, she swung the rifle from her shoulder to her hands. The purple ammunition glowed above the barrel of the gun, and she trained it on the shifting pile.

The ‘debris’ was a pile of Krimzon Guard bodies. The top layer of the pile had clearly been chewed on by Metalheads. Even their tough armor had been no match for the relentless jaws of the monsters. Baking in three days of sun and the work of gravity was starting to wear down the frayed bodies. She kept her gun trained on it, however, just in case, as she made her way to the Sacred Site.

She sensed more than saw when she was close. She back stepped, eying her perimeter, fully aware that the stillness could be hiding lingering Metalheads, using the stench of death to mask themselves. Her heel drifted through a curtain of cooler air, and she involuntarily flinched. The cooler air was pleasant despite the jolt of surprise, and she glanced back to see where her feet had taken her.

The bulbous wooden hut of the Sacred Site loomed out of the shadowy night. Relief crashed over her shoulders, and she let it run rampant across her body for a blissful moment.

It was still here. It was still standing. They hadn’t burned it. They hadn’t bombed it. They hadn’t destroyed it.

How?

The only answer was the Shadow.

Now that her heel had passed through it, Tess found that she could almost see the green silhouette of the shield that hung around the old hut. The burned sand and golden ring of skull gems painted a stark outline of where the green shield had refused them passage to the site. Yet the air parted in a gentle mist as Tess passed through it. The shield drifted across her form, like passing through a thin membrane of green eco.

On the other side of the curtain, the stench of blood and dark eco was replaced with a softer aroma of old, dry wood and salty sand. The emotion that had planted itself in her throat was violently dislodged at the merciful relief. Hot tears burned her eyes, and she backed into the side of the hut, letting her knees buckle.

The gun fell from her grasp, landing uselessly on the sand.

She sank to her seat beside the weapon, pushing the heels of her hands against her eyes, sobbing mutely…still so fearful of drawing the attention of any lingering Metalheads.

Dead. They were all dead. None of it was quick. There was no mercy here, not from the Metalheads, not from Praxis. Men, women, chil—

Tess turned and vomited onto the sand.

“Young one?”

The voice, so calm and gentle in this hellscape, jogged her out of her horrors.

She turned in her seat toward the front doorway of the lower level of the hut. Busted machinery not of this time period lay rusted around the open floor, but in the center was…

“Shadow,” Tess croaked, scrambling to her knees and then clumsily to her feet.

The small man hobbled forward on his wooden stilts to reach her.

“What are you doing here?” His scolding tone was undercut by the exhaustion in his voice.

“The Underground is dead. They’re all dead,” she gushed, unable to be the only one carrying that burden any longer. “He carpet bombed all of the slums…one managed to hit our hideout. They’re…they’re all dead. It’s just you and me.”

The tired lines of the Shadow’s face tightened, and he scowled.

“Praxis cannot continue this reign of terror over the city. He has committed an act of war upon his own people!” Both of his hands curled into fists at his sides.

The green shimmering around the hut flickered, and Tess quickly wiped her eyes, looking around.

“H-How are you…How did you…”

“Are there any survivors in the area?” he asked.

The authority in his tone was a welcome thing, and Tess straightened.

“No, but I haven’t been able to…It’s been three days since the sector was walled off.”

“Three DAYS?!” he balked. “That’s not possible.”

Tess shook her head. “No one has come in or out of here since the shield wall was pulled back.”

“Except for you, child,” he said softly, reaching out and touching her elbow.

Tess quivered and fought to keep her composure. “How could I not? I don’t…have anywhere else to go…He’s killed everyone else.”

The Shadow offered a sad smile and picked up her rifle from the sand. “Not everyone…The Baron’s actions here will further polarize the city. More will take a stand, but his loyalists are going to pull together as well. This battle was lost, but the war is only just beginning. The Underground survived this, and we will rebuild our forces.”

He held out the rifle, grasping it around the middle of the barrel.

Tess breathed for a moment. She looked at the rifle, to him, and then cast a slow look around the carnage steeping the ruins around them. Her eyes went back to the Shadow. His mournful expression had started to harden.

Her jaw clenched, and she reached out, taking the rifle with both hands.

“Where do we start?”


End file.
